Essence of Things

Quoting mew

Hi! I've read that according to Aristotle, every thing has an essence which makes it what it is.

According to this statement, a thing's essence is something particular, it is what makes the thing the thing that it is, and not something else, so it is the thing's particularity.

Quoting mew

Also, that essence is universal but something universal exists only through particular things.

Now, you have described essence as something universal. So you need to either establish some principles of compatibility whereby a thing's particularity is something universal, or allow that "essence" is used in two completely different ways. Otherwise you may have made a mistake in your description.

I think that Aristotle was a substance dualist, as he distinguish primary substance from secondary substance, so he has two distinct ways of using "essence", one refers to a universal, the other to a particular.

Reply to mew Hi mew, I was just musing on this in another thread. I'm no Aristotle expert but I've been reading a bit in the last couple of years. 'Essence' is a Latinate word and translation, Aristotle's phrasing sounds more like badly-translated Heidegger (no surprise as Heidegger was reaching back to Aristotle), what-it-is-to-be. Essence is form - with matter as substance - primary and secondary.

The essence of a thing then lies is constituted through its ergon, which might be translated as something like 'function'. Our human ergon is to seek eudaimonia, the good through virtuous action, which in turn we achieve partly through phronesis, which is practical reasoning.

There isn't just 'rationality' for Aristotle, he has a complicated account where the soul has appetitive and rational parts that intercommunicate, and indeed practical reason is how we learn to do that well. So we learn to be in tune with our ergon through practice and (rational) deliberation. It's clear from his many ordinary examples that he doesn't universalise indiscriminately over all humans. Part of the essence (sic) of the whole virtue approach to action is that the generalisations are loose enough to require judgment in individual cases, yet clear enough to gain general assent within a society - well, Athens in the 4th C BC anyway!

Quoting Metaphysician Undercover

I think that Aristotle was a substance dualist, as he distinguish primary substance from secondary substance, so he has two distinct ways of using "essence", one refers to a universal, the other to a particular.

Do you mean that there is something due to which a particular human is the particular human that it is and then there's something due to which humans are humans? What would be the latter? Is there such a thing?

Reply to mcdoodle Hi! Sorry, I didn't mean that Aristotle considers rationality the essence of man. The example was mine, I was just trying to understand. So, from what you say, the essence that makes things to be recognized as belonging to a specific group is not shared by all the members of this group?

Interesting word, 'essence'. Sometimes it just means 'being'; sometimes it means more like 'what makes a thing that kind of thing' - a waggly tail is the essence of dogginess; Sometimes it relatedly means the distilled aromatic oil of characteristic scent - vanilla essence.

The ergon (omic?) of vanilla is not the shape of the pod, but the smell.

Bloody Wittgenstein rather shot this fox with his analysis of the essence of 'game', which failed to find anything essential, but only 'family resemblances'. Mind you, it could be that that is the essence of a game, that it has nothing essential to it ... ;)

Been a while since I've read Aristotle, but here goes. The essence is something that is abstracted from particular things. In this way a property is universal; it can be said of many things. Now since property can be abstracted from every individual of some species, and in part distinguishes it from other things, it's essential to it insofar as it makes it what it is. (e.g. a human being is distinguished from other animals by rationality, and it is an animal, thus it's a rational animal.)

It's possible for the expression of the essence to be hindered, so that something that is proper to a member of a species doesn't actually show up or does so in a lacking way, but this doesn't touch the essence as long as the possibility of the expression of the property, e.g. rationality, remains. A person in a coma surely doesn't lose her essence for it, but rather something is hindering its acting. A newborn is still learning to express it. It seems an empirical question, however, at what point the essence is completely away, but when it is, that thing is just something else.

Reply to unenlightened What are family resemblances? Isn't it contradictory to say that the essence of things is that they have no essence? :s

Reply to SomXtatis But how do we know that the possibility is there if it never gets actual?

Quoting mew

What are family resemblances?

Well I have my mother's nose, and my father's eyes, but my sister has my father's nose and my mother's eyes; so we have nothing in common, but are the same family.

Quoting mew

Isn't it contradictory to say that the essence of things is that they have no essence? :s

Yes. It was a joke.

Reply to mew I think that's an empirical question, so, I've no idea. But if it is, the essence is there; this doesn't mean that we have to be aware of it in any way.

Quoting unenlightened

Well I have my mother's nose, and my father's eyes, but my sister has my father's nose and my mother's eyes; so we have nothing in common, but are the same family.

Oh, OK! Is there an objective way to say who is not part of the family?

Quoting unenlightened

Yes. It was a joke.

It sounds true though >:O

Quoting mew

Is there an objective way to say who is not part of the family?

Depends what you mean by 'objective'. You're not part of my family for definite, but the dog is, and so is the urn of grandpa's ashes. One can know who's in and who's out for certain, but there is no definable essence required of all members other than being 'in'. Likewise, we know what a game is and isn't, but there is no common feature of Russian roulette, solitaire, and frisbee - or if there is I can more or less guarantee to find another game that lacks that feature.

Quoting unenlightened

You're not part of my family for definite, but the dog is

Hm, yes, but not based on resemblance, which I thought was the criterion? By "objective" I mean based on the nature (looks) of things that we categorize, not on our whims. For example, if we judge who's in based on resemblance, and two people look the same, logically we'd have to either include both or exclude both. So, if there's no shared feature but different games share different features, where and how do we draw the line?

Quoting mew

where and how do we draw the line?

You observe what others call games and you call those types of things games too. There is no absolute "line". More a fuzzy boundary constrained by use.

There are aspects that are shared and their are aspects that are different - as with snowflakes.

A modern update of shared energetic aspects that are at the same time different might be Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance.

Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance

Reply to Baden Oh, ok, I see. I think that after all this approach is not that different from Aristotle's as mcdoodle and somxtatis described it. At least in practice. Do you agree?

Reply to mew

Sure, in practice, it won't necessarily matter much but the approaches have very different philosophical bases.

Reply to mew I think what all this points to, and rather contra Aristotle, is that even in the case of a well defined class like 'triangle', the essence turns out to be more of a linguistic affair than a distilled special oil that inheres in things.

Quoting mew

Do you mean that there is something due to which a particular human is the particular human that it is and then there's something due to which humans are humans?

Yes, I think that's about right. There is something which makes me me, and something which makes you you, and since this "something" is different for each of us, we are each particular human beings. That "something" is the essence of each particular. But since there is also something similar about us, which makes us each the same type of thing, a human being, we assume that there is also a generalized essence, what it means to be a human being, and this is the universal.

Quoting mew

What would be the latter? Is there such a thing?

I think this is a matter of convention, what it means to be a human being is defined by what is accepted by convention. I believe Aristotle defined "man" as a "rational animal". The modern Platonist might argue that there is an independent "Form", which constitutes the objective meaning of "human being', such that if we could have access to, and know this Form, we would know the true meaning of human being. In other words, one would believe that there is a true, objective meaning to "human being". But I think it is just a matter of convention. Notice that we do not even use the generic "man" very often any more, like Aristotle defined "man", not "human being". Aristotle was before the Latin influence which shifted us from "man" to "human being". A word has an associated concept, (concept referring to the conventions of use), and if that concept proves to be deficient, sometimes a new word, with a different concept must be introduced.

Essences, categories and such attempt to explain how words which are always general, can possibly consistently apply to things, which are always particular.

I don't think that it is easily denied that all ideas or notions are general, so in order to maintain that we're still talking about the objects and circumstances of our experiences, then these essential generalities must in some sense inhere in the objects themselves.

This then spawns the dance of siding with rationalism or empiricism, everything is completely unique, or uniqueness doesn't exist at all and things.